This is my rig: Sebastian Anthony

With each successive microarchitecture release from Intel since I built my Nehalem-based PC at the beginning of 2010, I kept asking myself, “is it time to upgrade?” Sandy Bridge was nice, but it wasn’t worth upgrading for a paltry 15% performance boost. Likewise, another 10% from Ivy Bridge just wasn’t enough. I had already decided ahead of time that Haswell would finally be it, that I would finally bite the bullet and upgrade — but then, when benchmarks started to arrive and it was yet another small step up, I started to have second thoughts. Was this really going to be the first time in history that I’ve used the same rig for more than four years?

Eventually, though, I sat down and thought about it rationally: Once you add up all of the small, incremental upgrades, Haswell would be around 50% faster than Nehalem — and for someone who does a lot of work with photos and videos, and a fair bit of gaming, that’s a pretty serious upgrade. I had some misgivings about Haswell’s lack of overclockability, but my Core i7-930 was never very comfortable over 4GHz on air, while early Haswell overclocks seemed to have no problem hitting 4.2GHz or more. The i7-930 had some monstrous memory bandwidth thanks to its triple-channel memory controller — but with a bit of overclocking, I was fairly certain that a new Haswell system would be capable of matching that bandwidth (plus, the real-world difference between 21GB/sec and 26GB/sec is really rather minimal).

With the upgrade path fully rationalized — with the mental verification that my new rig could be significantly faster than the last — I then set out to pick the parts.

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K

My previous computer was powered by the Core i7-930, one of the finest CPUs Intel has ever made. In its time, the 930 was by far the fastest chip on the consumer market, and capable of some truly astonishing overclocks — from 2.9GHz to 4GHz without batting a perfectly made-up eyelid. To be honest, one of the reasons I didn’t upgrade to Ivy Bridge was because I didn’t want a CPU with an integrated GPU. I thought about waiting for the “enthusiast” Ivy Bridge-E parts (4820, 4930K), but I wasn’t sure if I would really make use of the quad-channel memory — and anyway, it isn’t clear if the 4820 will actually be faster than the 4770K for my usage patterns. Plus, the overclockable 4930K is almost twice the price of the 4770K.

So, I opted for the Haswell-based Core i7-4770K — and boy am I happy that I did. It wasn’t cheap ($425), but that’s pretty much the case with all components in the UK.

Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S

Back in the olden days, when I was a hardcore hardware guy, I would choose a cooler by poring through forums and reviews. In this case, I simply took the advice of ExtremeTech’s hardware analyst, Joel Hruska. Basically, he loves the fact that Noctua provides free upgrade kits for new sockets, so that you can keep using the same cooler for years to come. My only other requirement was that the cooler must be silent — and it turns out that the Noctua NH-U14S is silent and very highly reviewed. So, that’s what I went for. It cost $85.

Yeah, one of the reasons I upgraded was that we had a lot of hot weather, and the i7-930 @ 4GHz was really struggling. Noisy + pumped out a lot of heat into my room.

GatzLoc

I thought I cared about noise but I just didn’t want 9 fans in 12v all the time.

There’s also a reasonable limit to of I think, being a student I don’t like having unplanned purchases so I keep my 2599k at 4.5 even though I’ve found 5.2 stable at under 1.3v. Just slap a bunch of rads into a water cooling designed case, I used a raven 3 which is #1 for air though.

All the calculations people do, are for naught. Like thick V’s thin rad. I think my delta t at idle is below 5 and stays under 8 with a cpu and 300w gpu fully loaded. I only spent a few hundred on it.

Techutante

I’m running mine with a water-cooled solution. It still pumps heat out the top at me like mad. Fortunately I live in Alaska, so this isn’t so much of a problem 3/4ths of the year.

JD Rahman

Memory bandwidth on Intel CPUs with dedicated won’t make such a huge difference, so you were right in skipping the Ivy Bridge-E. On tests with games, the difference in going from 18GB/s to 21GB/s is usually just a few fps. I can’t say how it will affect video encoding though (or other memory intensive tasks)

On AMD APUs though, memory bandwidth is critical, since system RAM is shared by GPU. Not very applicable to Intel integrated graphics, since the Intel graphics is not comparable to AMD APU Graphics.

Kind of pisses me off that an i5 2500k@4ghz (i played it safe) an SSD, pretty ordinary mobo and a standard GTX 660 + 8Gb of ddr3 is basically good enough to run everything out there at 1920×1080 maxed out on all or all but AA x16 or something ridiculous.

Like the author said, I’m kind of happy and sad that my rig is basically good to go for who knows how long, unless some insane upgrades or more importantly some insanely high end games with equally high end graphics start coming out soon. The only games that have pushed my rig are crysis 3 and probably battlefield 4 when that comes out, but even then I imagine 90% of the settings will be maxed.

Tig3RStyluS

had too many samsung HDD & SSD drive failures to ever buy them again… (2/2 1yr & 6/12 3yr). Adata SX910 XPG 512’s or 256’s are very fast, have mine in RAID0 as primary in two rigs

GatzLoc

I’d give them another chance I’ve mostly gotten patriot inferno refurbished and they have failed 2/3 in a year but we a reformat is nothing.

BigOkieTechie

*shakes head*

@davidtrimble:disqus My OCZ SSDs have been running for years with no issue…so has my Kingston (first one I bought). They’re kind of like cars; take care of them right and they last you a lot longer. :)

@mrseb: So expensive…so expensive. :(

@K1ngZ0mbie:disqus: I am still running a killer Athlon 2200!!! X-D lolz…but really…of the Intel CPUs I’ve heard of…a few of my friends got Q6600s…and some got ridiculous overclocks…even though they were hot as heck…but they never broke down even getting hot…I always wished I’d gotten one. I had an i7-875k for a while, and it was a nice chip. A guy in Holland has it now, and has it overclocked even better. I stick with AMD just because lower cost means I can buy more…booze X-D

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

I could’ve spent a lot more! But yeah, it was pretty costly in the end. The RAM and GPU were probably more than I should’ve spent.

KingZombie

I can get 16Gb of DDR3 2133 for around $140, IMHO expending $215 is too much money. For the video card I’m waiting for AMD 9000 serie, Nvidia is only offering rebrands right now (except for the GTX780), also the rumor of the new 9970 having 4096 shaders!!!! is keeping me from expending any money at the moment, if Nvidia cant mach the performance of AMD new GPUs we are gonna start seeing lots of discounted cards in the market.

some_guy_said

The video card is acceptable, but yeah, most of us think you wasted money on ram.

BigOkieTechie

@mrsebs

Oh yeah…you could have spent a LOT more…I’ve spent $2500+ on a rig before…and that was being conservative on parts lol

The others have mentioned memory being too high…which is true…really nice memory…but, a bit too pricey.

One thing I would have done different is not getting the Noctua. $85 for that is pretty high for an air cooler. Although it’s a quality cooler…i.e.- one of the best air coolers made…I would have looked at something different. But, that’s just me.

Plus, you’re in Europe which means your parts are about 25-70% more
than what Americans can get them at places like Newegg or
Microcenter…sometimes ridiculously cheap.

(just as an example…Newegg has about 10 liquid coolers on sale right now from Antec, et. al., starting at $35 after rebate…and you can get the H100 right now for $90 after MIR)

It’s a nice build tho. Will do a lot for you with no issues. If you game, we’ll have to Steam sometime :)

Angel Ham

Do some Bitcoin mining benchmarks on it!

http://geek.com/ sal cangeloso

On nvidia?!

Basil Nolan

Good point.

tgrech

I’ve been litecoin mining with a HD7870XT almost constantly(Get a max of 660Kh/s Core@1050Mhz and mem@1.7Ghz(~1.6 ratio)). In this weather I’m not sure the added heat is worth it, unless you have an excellent cooling system for your room(Not sure AC is worth it in the UK though), have the rig in a different room, or you’re fine sitting in your room nude with your window open and a 32cm fan blowing on you with stockpiles of iced 2ltr bottles(As I’ve been doing).
This is with a FX8320@4.5Ghz as well, but even while gaming that never seems to go above 45% load so I doubt it’s adding THAT much heat(I can game fine while mining with 13 aggression).

RozzSummer

@Sebastian, looking at the picture of your assembled handiwork, you might consider reorienting your cooler by twisting it to the left 90 degrees. You’d then have the fan sucking cooler air from the front of the case and exhausting the hot air directly out the exit fan at the top of the case. The way you have it installed now, the CPU fan is pulling hot air directly off the back of your graphics card. Based on my own experience building a unit with the orientation you have on the cooler now, you’ll drop CPU temps by 8 – 12 degrees C by changing the orientation 90 degrees. Plus, add one more Noctua fan on the other side of the cooler as a “puller” and with the cooler in the new position, you’ll pick up even more overclock potential. Also, since you want a quieter system, the idle temps will drop and your case and CPU PWM fans will slow accordingly.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Hey!

I wondered if anyone would point this out.

I’m actually going to move the fan at the back to the top, I think. Something to do with heat rising, or something?

Or maybe it’s not worth it, because the back of the GPU is so warm? Not sure.

My load temps are pretty reasonable at the moment though (don’t seem to go above 50C or so?) But not checked too closely yet.

RozzSummer

Assuming the top case fan in its current position is exhausting out of the case, then simply reorienting the cooler and having the fan blow through the cooler and directly at the exhausting case fan will rapidly remove heat from the case.

If you don’t want to change the cooler’s orientation, then I’d suggest positioning the fan so it blows down through the cooler and onto the graphics card. That will lower CPU temps and slightly raise your GPU temps. You seem to be more concerned with CPU overclocking than GPU overclocking, so the tradeoff would be a good one. The graphics card you chose has a very nice cooler on it, so make it earn its keep :)

I run a combination of 22 high-end graphics cards in 6 systems for a high-performance simulation application – heat is always an issue, but I’ve learned that with a good air-flow design to exhaust heat out of the case nearest to the source, it’s amazing how quiet and cool-running a high-performance system can actually be.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Thanks for the input :) I’ll experiment, when I get a chance!

BigOkieTechie

My suggestion, after looking at your build, would be to leave the CPU pushing air up for the following reasons:

a) your case has 2 fans pulling in air from the front. this pushes air over the GPU and CPU both.
b) your GPU will be attempting to pull its heated air through its thermal duct toward the rear of the rig where it’s slot grate is located.
c) leaving the CPU fan pulling air up inside your case will help to exhaust air through the top as well as pull air toward the rear fan.

I think if you want to increase exhaust of GPU-heated air, you would be better served (so long as there’s nothing next to it now) getting a slot exhausting fan which will pull air from the GPU (presumably located in the adjacent slot) next to it off and out of the case. I think they run about $10-15.

Anyways…good luck with it :)

RozzSummer

Assuming the top case fan in its current position is exhausting out of the case, then simply reorienting the cooler and having the fan blow through the cooler and directly at the exhausting case fan will rapidly remove heat from the case.

If you don’t want to change the cooler’s orientation, then I’d suggest positioning the fan so it blows down through the cooler and onto the graphics card. That will lower CPU temps and slightly raise your GPU temps. You seem to be more concerned with CPU overclocking than GPU overclocking, so the tradeoff would be a good one. The graphics card you chose has a very nice cooler on it, so make it earn its keep :)

I run a combination of 22 high-end graphics cards in 6 systems for a high-performance simulation application – heat is always an issue, but I’ve learned that with a good air-flow design to exhaust heat out of the case nearest to the source, it’s amazing how quiet and cool-running a high-performance system can actually be.

wmac

What do you do with these PCs anyway? I upgraded to a G630 and a GTS450 this year. I find it quite enough as a researcher. I run Matlab, VStudio, Eclipse (with bunch of plugins and modules), Xilinx ISE, Altera Quartus II, and my huge AI simulations (includes Graphical rendering, multi-thread) on the same PC.

I never understood why people spend huge money on rigs :)

tgrech

Once you go so fast it’s hard to slow down. It’s like trying to go back to red bottletop UHT milk after spending a year on full cream. It just isn’t possible.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

I spend 16 hours a day on my PC — so, any little speed boosts add up, over time! Just a few extra minutes each day works out to an hour or two every month. Not bad, productivity-wise, if you consider how much an hour of my time is worth.

But yeah, there are big gains for me, editing photos/videos — and it doesn’t hurt that games run very well :)

Adrian-Florin Vișan

Rendering high quality video can kneel any PC rig. For a 5 minute video with some filtering and a few effects I had to wait about 2 hours for the render to end, and the computer wasn’t usable at that point, I was forced to move to my laptop for my other tasks.

I use a lot of Visual Studio too and it doesn’t even register compared to rendering applications. It all depends on your usage pattern.

Computers are different though. Unlike a vast investment in automotive power, a powerful computer is actually useful for something. Cameras have some things as well. Sound systems, I really don’t know. Like fast cars, you can’t really turn them up all that often.

mazty

Well, y’know, gaming. Also if you are running those programs you could really benefit from a better CPU. AI simulations on 2 cores? Get yourself a octacore CPU and OC it – you’ll reduce your simulation times by >50%. Also make sure you’ve good RAM and better cooling – ram can easily be fried by simulations.

GatzLoc

Lol, I stopped reading when you said ram for $215 you sir, got ripped off hard. $425 for a cpu?

Damm, why not just get the new variant of the i5-2500k?

Or even the new 5ghz AMD chip if you need cores, as for video cards I still think a 7970 is the best value if you can find one around $300 because it just overclocks and smashes everything.

Idk man..

It’s your money, and everything but lol I would have gotten a better gpu, and saved money on the ram/cpu.

Maybe also get better accessories with the money saved, or build a water loop. AIr cooling is for noobs. :P

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Components are expensive in the UK — that’s just how it goes, unfortunately :)

tgrech

I think it might have been best to keep the currency in GBP, direct conversion to USD are sort of pointless when you count in the extra costs like VAT dumped on us here.
I still think you could of done better purchases for the money, or better decisions considering it’s going to occasionally be used for LAN(For your use, a Z87I-PRO and an mITX case would of made more sense to me, but I guess you’ve never had trouble transporting ATX cases before).
It seems like a water cooling loop would be a good investment from here if you have the cash, and you want to maintain a healthy(Long term) and quiet rig that doesn’t lack speed. Plus you can normally keep the parts for many other builds to come.

tgrech

I think it might have been best to keep the currency in GBP, direct conversion to USD are sort of pointless when you count in the extra costs like VAT dumped on us here.
I still think you could of done better purchases for the money, or better decisions considering it’s going to occasionally be used for LAN(For your use, a Z87I-PRO and an mITX case would of made more sense to me, but I guess you’ve never had trouble transporting ATX cases before).
It seems like a water cooling loop would be a good investment from here if you have the cash, and you want to maintain a healthy(Long term) and quiet rig that doesn’t lack speed. Plus you can normally keep the parts for many other builds to come.

some_guy_said

“Damm, why not just get the new variant of the i5-2500k?”I did
something similar to Sebastion in July of 2012. The one part that I
would want to upgrade the most is my i5 3750k. I’m not unhappy with it
by any means, but it is definitely the weakest link. I think spending a
few hundred more on something nicer is worth the money.

I agree with you on the memory. Rarely have I peaked over 4gig usage when I have 8 total. You only really need more/better memory if you’re doing straight up heavy duty video production or rendering.

Water cooling is unnecessary for a quiet system. I built mine under the same auspices, and rarely notice it. Extensive overclocking, though easier, also doesn’t yield the same benefit ratio as it did 15 years ago.

some_guy_said

“Damm, why not just get the new variant of the i5-2500k?”I did
something similar to Sebastion in July of 2012. The one part that I
would want to upgrade the most is my i5 3750k. I’m not unhappy with it
by any means, but it is definitely the weakest link. I think spending a
few hundred more on something nicer is worth the money.

I agree with you on the memory. Rarely have I peaked over 4gig usage when I have 8 total. You only really need more/better memory if you’re doing straight up heavy duty video production or rendering.

Water cooling is unnecessary for a quiet system. I built mine under the same auspices, and rarely notice it. Extensive overclocking, though easier, also doesn’t yield the same benefit ratio as it did 15 years ago.

Jon Donnelly

The new 5ghz AMD chip will be close to $900.

The 760, is amazing is SLI Mode and scales fantastical well. I know I have 2 of his cards and seen over 80% SLI scaling in some games and has great solid drivers.
Water loops are not necessary for Haswell, as the TDP is so low.

The haswell i7 crushs everything AMD offers with only 4.2Ghz and for that air works perfectly well. Why add complexity when its not needed?

Longshanks

Im not sure if you lived under rock but if you did im going to tell you the ugly truth. PCs is dead!!! Why are you people investing in dead technology? Two harddrives omg whats that for last time i checked tablets/smartphones do not have SATA ports so you might as well throw them to garbage. Store everything to cloud because it modern its new and its cool!
Two monitors? Seriously inst 7in tablet enough for you? Since Office 365 is available for Android you can make documents with it. Yep thats right for example i made three documents last week on my smartphone so if i can do it you can too! And dont get me started on usage of obsolete ways of how we controlled devices in past namely the keyboard and mouse Yuck!

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

ha :)

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

ha :)

JRQuilcon

Yeah I’m *sure* you wanna spend 16 hrs a day holdin a tablet, lookin’ at a 7″ screen! :P

Neon Frank

Hmmmmm

I re-read his post…maybe he was being sarcastic….

Neon Frank

You made me LOL

mike

you are so smart. you are really really smart. for real.

Longshanks

Im not sure if you lived under rock but if you did im going to tell you the ugly truth. PCs is dead!!! Why are you people investing in dead technology? Two harddrives omg whats that for last time i checked tablets/smartphones do not have SATA ports so you might as well throw them to garbage. Store everything to cloud because it modern its new and its cool!
Two monitors? Seriously inst 7in tablet enough for you? Since Office 365 is available for Android you can make documents with it. Yep thats right for example i made three documents last week on my smartphone so if i can do it you can too! And dont get me started on usage of obsolete ways of how we controlled devices in past namely the keyboard and mouse Yuck!

Dozerman

Wait… Sebastion runs Windows?

Luis E.

Why do you think he speaks so loudly against any changes in Windows 8? Because he uses it the whole day!!! That’s why xD

Waiting for Windows 8.1 RTM….

Jon Donnelly

If I recommended Windows 8 to an enterprise, I could kiss my job goodbye, it have already got that much of a (vista) stigma. Its actually fine when tweaked but the damage is done, the confidence is gone and its exactly what Microsoft deserve, they were told by tens of thousands of beta testers to fix it and 8.1 it far too little too late.

Techutante

They will bounce back. They always do, because honestly nobody has put up a real competitor. Sure you could install a MAC OS, if you want everything to be totally NOT a PC. But there’s not way to run something other than Windows on a PC and still maintain some level of user friendly interface. Remember Windows ME? Vista wasn’t even the biggest stinker. Eventually people will say nice things about Win 8.1, or 8.2 and everyone will come back around.

James Tolson

i chuckle at these kind of articles, showing off the latest in hardware porn.. i wonder how much the author gets paid to plug all the brand names into the article..

lines like “So, I opted for the Haswell-based Core i7-4770K — and boy am I happy that I did” makes me laugh so much my sides hurt, especially when u read the comments below of the desires of readers bellowing “i want one” it reminds me of the movie “The Joneses”

in reality any rig from 2005 will run most games and software released today.. even if like me u have an AGP dual or single core rig with 2gb ram then you are fine, u don’t even need anything more than windows xp running on your machine, to enjoy the latest games.. better save your money wait until the next generation of games (xbone and ps4) then invest in new stuff then. and only then

i remember buying a geforce 3 when they first came out (so i could see the cool water effects in morrowind) i spent like 500 quid on it, it was obsolete in 6 months and was selling for less then 90 quid, since then i have never bought the latest greatest.. but back then i was easily duped by journalists pushing latest tech lmao

mazty

” don’t even need anything more than windows xp running on your machine, to enjoy the latest games”
At 720p, low settings and DX9 only.

PC gamers tend to want max or close to max graphics setting at 1080p. For that you need at least a 500 series card and nehalem architecture.

Techutante

My GTX 460 runs games all max just fine.

mazty

All games as in games from 2008. Go play BF3 on ultra with it – you won’t get playable frames.

TheOtherTurnipTaliban

You might be laughing at the articles but I’m laughing at you because of the stupid stuff in this post.

A decent gaming rig from 2005, say a 6800GT or so, will RUN 90% of games. Yes. It will not run them well, it will run them at around 720p and probably only around 30fps.

Games that demand quick responses and actions like borderlands 2 for example would be to all intents and purposes unplayable. So yeah, be ready to make some major major sacrifices, there’s no way I would ever go back to the rig I had in 2005, the performance gains in the past 8 years have been absolutely huge.

And yeah of course your geforce 3 was almost immediately obsolete, that’s what happens when you pick the wrong time to invest in an upgrade and then you buy the wrong card as well. Bad value for money.

This isn’t some bs article to “dupe” people into buying stuff, I just liked reading about an enthusiast building his new rig.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Just FYI, I bought all of these bits myself, and no hardware maker has ever given me free hardware, or paid me to say anything positive about their equipment.

James Tolson

thanks for clearing that up, i stand corrected and i apologize, im rather cynical in my old age :-P

some guys where quick to flame me, thanks for not doing the same, i only intend constructive criticism, it seems you have good fans of your articles, keep up the good work :-)

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

It takes a lot to piss me off :)

No problemo. Stick around and enjoy the ride!

Jon Donnelly

You don’t actually have a geforce 3 with dual core and 2gb ram on XP do you? Good luck with that.

James Tolson

no, my rig is based on a Amd FX60, 3 gb ram, ATI 4670HD AGP i did dual boot both Xp and windows 7, but since deleted my windows 7 as i never used it and just about everything works great on xp, (better in most cases)..

surprisingly even tho some will disagree i have yet to find a game that my rig struggles with, the max resolution i run games at is 1680 x 1050 and i never use anti aliasing as i hate it.. apart from that games run at max settings and perfectly smooth :-)

GatzLoc

That’s because new games don’t work on xp…

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Rogers network.

James Tolson

I only know of Sword of the stars 2, (reason i dual booted win7) but since i not play that anymore… i have not come across many others that Directx 10+ only titles if their is then im probably not interested in playing them, i don’t like them COD type FPS games..

Xcomm Enemy unknown works great in XP with a simple fix and it even runs better than it did in windows 7 and has yet to CTD, (im replaying that now)

so unless you can name some others?

GatzLoc

Arma 3, war game, company of heroes 2, skyrim, fifa, mount and blade, total war series, crysis, and many more.
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Rogers network.

James Tolson

with the exception of Arma 3, all the games u mention are direct X 9 games with 10/11 support if available, hence work fine under XP

Techutante

lol, I was playing Mount and Blade on my 3.2 Ghz P4 single core with a Doom 3 Branded 256 Meg video card. Some games can scale with technology well.

Jon Donnelly

Its smooth cause its running in dx9 mode, often forcing a modern game down to dx9 gives a nice 20-30% boost compared to dx11.

You would see a massive improvement on a modern low end pc with even a low end nvidia 650ti card, so time to stop being in denial. PC hardware is so cheap now so support the industry and update.

James Tolson

I doubt that, right now my rig serves more than fine… if and when the time comes and there is a paradigm shift in Hardware requirements then and only then ill consider upgrading and even then it will be for some some software or game that would be worth it to me to upgrade.. this will probably happen a year or so down the line when the X bone and PS4 hit mainstream and all new games will require similar or better hardware than the next gen consoles offer on the PC.. right now any PC with a single or dual core cpu with at least 1gb ram and 7800gtx//x1950pro gpu will play most modern games well as that is the similar hardware to current gen consoles (what current games are made for) and even my rig clearly beats that spec.. so why upgrade for the sake of it? makes absolutely no sense for me, there was a time i was enthusiastic about having the fastest, greatest PC but later realize it got me a 10 fps better on a couple of the very latest games yet spent hundreds of pounds of my money for that? only to be obsolete 6 months later lol, well times are hard now and i no longer have the money to throw at needless computer parts, u may and if so and if u enjoy it as a hobby then good luck to ya :-)

Marrach

I was struck with your remark about the Lian-Li case drawing blood along the slots.
It started with the Christmas Lights…the one from Asia always drew blood when you fought with them to string them up. And other things, like the PC cases had the same hungry taste for blood. I dreamed that somewhere in an underground grotto somewhere in Asia, a ring of ancient old men, all major stockholders in the major Asian Tech companies, lick their lips and smile whenever a Westerner bleeds on their products…especially because we never really notice that there’s NEVER ANY BLOOD STAIN on the product that sliced us: because it drank it!

And these ancient stockholders breathe out: “We shall Live Forever!”

Or at least that’s what the Dream told me. So I Never bought a sharp-edged, bloodthirsty Asian case ever again.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Hehe, the Lian Li DOESN’T draw blood! That’s why I like them :) The cheaper cases that I had in the past… the beige boxes… they drew blood!

I like your fiction though. Made me laugh.

Techutante

A new computer must always have a blood-letting to appease the new god of the living-room.

zapper

I have disintegrated my >15 kg PC already . I then threw out the clunky prehistoric dinosaur pc cabinet into dust bin. Then I threw out most of the cards & motherboard into the dustbin. Then I took out the Intel processor out of the cooler housing . After that I unscrewed the 5.25 inch hard disk . Then I removed the aluminium tape around it and plop came out the HDD cover revealing the mirror finished hard disk platter and its needle (spindle whatever) .
Now the opened HDD and Intel processor are adorning my wall.
Intel outside
(ooh I forgot to mention the heavy UPS, keyboard, mouse, cables, USB sharer, picturetube monitor, well, these also must have reached some landfill by now)

Postulative

I can understand on-board Bluetooth, but WiFi? You don’t have the router right next to your PC? (In fact, even with the router in another room I would want a physical connection to my main PC).

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

I thought it could be useful for ad-hoc networks :) Or if I take my PC somewhere and there isn’t a router that I can easily plug into.

No, my router isn’t next to my PC — it’s upstairs — and I have a pretty complex wiring solution so that I get Gig-E to my NAS (also upstairs)

Jon Donnelly

Wifi is always useful, Lan parties when ports are all used up, connecting to corporate guest networks at work, when wired is a no no. Fuk me, my laser printer has a wifi connection, its one less bloody usb cable.

Tig3RStyluS

Why did you go for that big lump of air cooler? you could have got a very decent closed loop liquid cooler for not much more £’s. i sacked my phanteks lump a long time ago

Jon Donnelly

Noctura coolers are very nice. I think the time is right for very sexy case designed to work with a massive Noctura cooler with ducting from front to back like in server cases. I think a fair bit more performance could be gained when a case and heatsink have synergy in the design.

Mahmoud

I’ve been using my E6750/GeForce 8800 GT for 7 years now

Although it is still enough for my needs to be honest,
Reading this article made me wanna upgrade, so thanks for saving me the “online research” time :) !
cheers

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

You’re welcome!

My 8800 GT was pretty good, too, but it maxed out at medium details @ 1680×1050. Now I game at 1920×1200, so needed something a bit beefier :)

I was all on board with SSD, then within 3 months it failed and I had to reinstall windows again. Grrrr, I just installed to my 2 TB SATA 3 drive and haven’t bothered since.

Jon Donnelly

Oh, Seb I am slightly jealous, that case is sick my man! You will have to do some steampunk or borg inspired mods. That heatsink is already quite steampunk looking.

So still using my sandybridge at 4.8Ghz, its got to close to 3 years old now. 20% more performance in 3 years, things have got a bit stale.

Replaced my Nvidia SLI 285’s (lasted me 3 rigs) and 4 years. They were bought for Crysis 1, and subsequently ran everything fine since. I blame the console-port games for this, finally with new consoles coming I can make use of 2 mid range cards..

Yes like you this time, I went for mainstream models with SLI 760s, although I almost went for a 780, then caught myself on. Expensive cards are a bad investment.

I’ve always thought about going down the SLI route, or RAID… but still never done it. I think it’s because the performance gains really only affect a few very specific use-cases. It’s definitely cool to have, but I’ve never been a fan of spending extra money for minimal gain.

One of the main reasons I upgraded, btw, was because the OC’d Nehalem was probably drawing 200W+. It pumped out a LOT of heat, and probably cost me a fair bit, too. The Haswell chip is cooler, quieter, costs less.

Cool use of those cheap SSDs. I’d be tempted with SSD RAID, but again, we’re probably talking about fractional differences, unless you’re doing a lot of video work.

Jon Donnelly

Yeah, I got to agree SLI is a fractional gain and it does make the system a bit louder. I got nice gains on the 760 with a hacked bios to set the memory at 7.5Ghz. All done with GUI tools too. And if the flash goes wrong, shove an old card in boot up and flash it back to factory :)

Jon Donnelly

Hey, Seb you should do an article on kickstarter and star trek renegades. Finally got around to watching it and I believe without kickstarter this kind of show would never have been possible.

Moshan

Thank you for this article, Sebastian. I am more or less in the same position as you are.

My CPU is 4 years old (i5-750K), I did get myself 8 gigabyte of RAM when it was supercheap back in 2011 and my GPU is a 560 Ti 1 gigabyte RAM from Zotac(slightly overclocked from the factory).

can I upgrade to a Ivy Bridge at least? I know Haswell requires a new Mobo.
And if I could upgrade to a good Ivy, could I also get, say, a GTX 780 on my old’ish Mobo?

I’m asking you because you seem to be smart :D
(Anyone who is in the know is also welcome to dish out opinions on my questions).

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Not sure, to be honest. Just look at the socket on your motherboard, and see if it’s the same socket as IVB or Haswell :)

Moshan

What about the GPU? Let’s say the Mobo is compatible with Ivy, how do I know if I could install a GTX 780 aside from height/length requirements?
Sorry for ‘obvious’ question but I haven’t done a good answer, a lot of people I’ve asked don’t seem to know and googling has been mixed.

GatzLoc

Check what pci-e version the slot is. I remember I think guru 3d did a test where the flagship cards were only held back by four lanes of 1.0 but that might not be the case today.
At this point, I’d personally get a card used or wait, nothing from Nvidia seems compelling especially given the fact that they don’t oc as well, and you get games with new Amd ones.
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Rogers network.

http://www.georgefloros.com/ George Floros

There’s quite a lot of noise from hard drives spinning;it helps if you move all of your files on external drives and use them sparingly, move a video you are editing on an ssd and edit it there. My single caviar black is so loud that when it spins down its almost eerie. Also, its much quitier using more fans in low speeds than less fans spinning faster.
Really ugly rig though.
7/10 made me drool

Nidal Najjar

Thank you for this article, great read!
Thinking about upgrading to a 760 from a 580, I think you sold me

Nidal Najjar

Thank you for this article, great read!
Thinking about upgrading to a 760 from a 580, I think you sold me

GoingOut

Hi Sebastian. Thanks for sharing, its a really nice build. I am looking at building a similar rig soon, although may go with the Corsair 550D as noise is a big consideration for me. Just wondered, what’s that chair you have, and where did you get it? It looks very ergonomical :)

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Cool! the 550D looks pretty nice as well. I just reeeally fancied a cube case :)

It’s a Herman Miller Embody. It’s a very, very fancy chair that cost too much. But yes, it’s amazing to sit in — and I figured, if I spend 14+ hours per day sitting, I should probably get a good chair :)

GoingOut

Ahh thanks – I really need a decent chair, did you try it out first somewhere or just order it online? I’m from England too, and seems the only place to go is Staples which don’t sell that kind of thing afaik.

Yes, I really like the 540 case, so am agonising a bit over it… Nice to see the U14S doesn’t interfere with the RAM on this board too.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

It’s made in the US, and there are a few UK importers.

I didn’t try it out first, which was probably a bit risky. There aren’t many showrooms unfortunately (I think a few in London, but that’s about it). I just read a loooot of reviews and convinced myself it would be fine :)

GoingOut

Thanks, John Lewis do have Herman Miller but not the Embody… I may have a look instore next time I’m at Bluewater though. :)

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Good luck! I think if you phone up Herman Miller, they will help you find a showroom. They’re a top-notch designer brand.

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